


Only a Number

by Artemis_Dreamer



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: (Not), 3128, Aging with Dignity, Birthdays Suck, Crack, Established Relationship, FrostIron - Freeform, Humor, Immortality, M/M, Norse Mythology - Freeform, golden apples
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 08:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis_Dreamer/pseuds/Artemis_Dreamer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which it is Loki's three thousand, one hundred and twenty-eighth birthday, and Tony really wasn't supposed to know. Ah well - revenge is sweet, and apples are sweeter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only a Number

When the gossip magazines scored pictures of Tony Stark buying numeral birthday candles – numbered 2, 8, 1, and 3 – they had a field day guessing the identity of the lucky lady and her age.

When the team glimpsed the packaging of the candles scattered across the kitchen table, they had a good round of speculation as to whether the billionaire had finally lost it. After all, the team didn’t know anyone born in January, right? 

And, when Loki – villain extraordinaire – saw the candles on his birthday cake, he knew that Thor had opened his moronic mouth yet again.

As a god, he was meant to have a certain mystique; his life and his past ought to largely be shrouded in rumor and uncertainty. Oh, of all the rotten… first the insipid mortals and their mythology, revealing with surprising accuracy the intimate details of his relationships and his children’s lives. Now Thor, telling Anthony not only his date of birth, but also his age. 

Three thousand, one hundred and twenty eight years was nothing to be proud of.

Yet, here was the number, illuminated by colorful numeral candles atop one of those cheap supermarket birthday cakes.

Tony had once claimed that age was only a number – the trickster would vehemently disagree.

“Stark,” Loki groaned despairingly, glaring at his far-too-cheerful lover. “Was this truly necessary?”

The inventor just gave him an incredulous look, as if he had asked the least intelligent question possible. “Three years of us, together, without me knowing your birthday. Is there any world in which this is NOT necessary?”

“Yes,” the trickster grumbled, head in his hands. “This one.”

Oh sure, it was only the two of them, sharing the only cake that Tony could sneak past the team and the media, at the breakfast bar in their locked-down penthouse. 

(Because this was a best-kept secret – heroes weren’t supposed to nail the villains, never mind nailing them in the context of a committed relationship for three years running.)

Really, this shouldn’t have been a big deal… only it was. It was an enormous deal. 

What was a god without his mystery? What was a lover when revealed to be many millennia older than his beloved? Well, besides really, really experienced in the sack.

“You know, Reindeer Games,” the billionaire smirked. “You’re just pissed off now that someone knows exactly how old you really are.” 

“Stark, I am an immortal deity,” came the muffled grumble. “I did not expect you to think of me as particularly youthful.”

“Ah, women. They all say that age doesn’t matter, and yet they still freak the heck out when their birthdays come along.”

A pointed grumble of ‘I am nothing like a woman’.

Heedless, the (reformed) playboy continued. “Seriously. You should have seen Pepper turn thirty – I thought I was going to need a tranquilizer gun.”

A stifled chuckle at that, though still no sign that the mischief-maker was going to forgive his lover. “Three thousand years is a span that far exceeds thirty, Anthony, and you ought to consider-”

“-that you, gorgeous, don’t look a day over a thousand!” Tony laughed loudly. 

A typically obnoxious Stark remark, interrupting what had promised to be a heartfelt statement.

A groan of aggravation, as Loki glared at his lover from behind the hands that he had pressed to his aching temples. This stress was completely uncalled for, and it was yet another reason why his ‘beloved brother’ sorely needed a thoroughly painful beating. What had even been bartered for the information?

Pop-Tarts, most likely.

As he tried to remove the thought of addictively sweet Midgardian food from his mind, his grinning lover laid a slice of the cake in front of him.

“I would have gotten you to blow out the candles, but something tells me I’d have been seriously pushing my luck; and you know me…”

“Yes,” Loki grumbled, stabbing his fork vehemently into the cake. “You have a pathetic fear of having your internal organs painfully rearranged by a vengeful Norse deity.”

It was disturbing that that line sounded vaguely practiced. 

“… I was going to say that I prefer all of my guts intact,” the genius shuddered, “but that works too.” 

Trust the trickster to phrase these delightful statements in ways that could make even the great Tony Stark wince. 

Making an appreciative sound around a mouthful of ten-dollar chocolate cake, Loki finally met the billionaire’s gaze without glaring poisonously. 

“To a mortal, a birthday marks a significant passage of time,” the god began. “To an Asgardian, a birthday marks but a fleeting moment. And to myself, a birthday marks another year that I grow closer to losing you.”

With that the trickster dropped his gaze, blushing lightly, and took another generous forkful of cake. 

Tony, understandably, was stunned into silence. Had his aloof lover just intimated that he really did want a long-term relationship? That even a mischievous spirit such as Loki might wish for stability and permanence? 

The inventor shook his head and stared openly at the man whom he had once casually referred to at a press conference as his “secret fuck-buddy”, but who had come to mean so much more.

He was in love with Loki, he was whipped for Loki, and he might actually be willing to think about admitting it.

“You know, Frosty,” the inventor grinned fondly. “You really had me going for a minute there.” It had to have been a joke, right?

A petulant pout was the response from his put-out lover, who flicked a forkful of cake in the direction of Anthony’s head. 

“Indeed I did, lover dear,” was the sarcastic and wounded response. 

Okay, not a joke then. Tony immediately rearranged his expression into an apologetic one, complete with puppy-dog eyes. Not the sofa, not the sofa...

It was now Loki’s turn to smirk as he regarded this familiar expression. It was time for a lighthearted change of subject. “Perhaps we ought to move on to the real travesty at hand – this cake is appalling.” 

A slight lie (the trickster would happily devour practically any dessert food), but it was true that any meal that his lover refused to even taste was appalling on principle. 

“There’s only one supermarket in the city without cameras or paparazzi. This is what they had.” The billionaire raised his hands in mock defeat, relieved that his love wasn’t getting all snippy about his little slip-up.

“Yes, teeth-rotting artificial-chocolate cake, intended for the birthday parties of drooling toddlers.”

Tony winced. That had been just plain mean, and more importantly, just plain true.

“Anthony,” the trickster smiled, the barest hint of danger in his eyes. “What do you say to something a tad less unpleasant?” 

Reaching across the breakfast bar, Loki snagged an apple from the canvas shopping bag that he had brought in that morning, and tossed it to a bemused Tony.

“An… apple?” Yes, there was genuine confusion in that tone. After all, the inventor knew quite well his god’s love of the extravagant (as did his suffering credit cards). He had expected something more along the lines of ‘exclusive restaurant dinner’ than ‘farm-fresh produce’. 

“Just taste it,” the trickster sighed, taking one for himself. “That charming new organic stall at the local market recommended these quite highly.”

A smooth, elegant, and flawless lie, worthy of the one known as the Silvertongue. Of course, our favorite ex-playboy hadn’t figured it out yet – give it a second.

“Huh. Golden Delicious,” Tony mused, surveying the robust yellow of the peel. “Always figured you for more of a Granny Smith type, Rudolph.”

An impatient glare from Loki.

“All right! All right! Sheesh, hold your reindeer.”

Tony bit resentfully into the apple, knowing full well that sometimes there was just no point in arguing with his lover, not over such tiny things. An apple was not worth two sexless weeks on the sofa.

The billionaire moaned as he tasted the fruit – literally moaned. It was perfect. Sweet, tart, and dripping with sugary juices. Almost too perfect.

Opening eyes that he could not recall closing, the inventor stared down at the fruit in his hand. Okay, no normal apple should ever have a gleaming gold peel. Just as no apple should have red flesh, or diamonds for seeds.

Goddamn illusion magic.

“What the actual hell is this?!” Tony blurted out the words the second that the sight registered in his mind.

Oh no. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be.

“A golden apple from the great tree of Asgard.” Loki smirked, confirming the billionaire’s suspicion. “It may be my birthday, but it is you who has received the greatest gift. How do you fancy immortality, beloved?”

“And to think,” Tony groaned. “All I got you was a Maserati.” 

The god bore the smirk of a trick well-executed, positively beaming at Anthony. 

“Indeed. What is a mere car when compared to an eternity of life alongside one as impeccable as myself?” Playful, but not entirely joking, arrogance.

The genius paused to take stock. His lover had just tricked him into immortality. Fricking immortality. 

Sure, no-one really wanted that sprung on them, but having literally forever to live? No chance of ending up dead on Avengers business? None of that aging nonsense? Getting to spend roughly one-third of that life in bed with the sexiest god in existence?

Score!

(Yes, they really are that horny. Perpetually.)

Tony gave a wry grin – the trickster really hadn’t wanted to lose him. Leaning across the marble counter, the inventor pressed a teasing kiss to Loki’s lips, pulling away far too soon for either man to be truly satisfied.

The look in his eyes promising more to come, the billionaire gave a lustful smile. 

“I, am going to show you just how much I love your devious mind right now, by loving the rest of your devious, perfect body until you’re too tired to even MOVE.”

Turned on though he was by this tantalizing promise, Loki could not help but slip in one barbed comment – after all, they now had an eternity in which to take care of their carnal desires.

“Indeed. And afterward, we shall plan your next several hundred birthdays. I wonder, how will you handle the thought of being three thousand, one hundred and twenty eight years old yourself?”

A wince and a groan were his response from his now traumatized lover. Damn, there goes the arousal, the vanity, and the appeal of immortality.

“Oh hush.” Loki smirked. “After all, what was it that you once said?”

“I remember,” Tony grumbled darkly, cursing his lighthearted comment. 

Wishing that he could curl up in a small, dark corner, the inventor repeated the words, as if saying them could make him believe that they were true.

“Age is only a number.”

A huge, obnoxious, embarrassing, ever-increasing, honkin’ massive number.

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> Is it OOC? Probably. Was it fun to write? Totally.
> 
> So, this was my birthday gift to myself, and a fair reflection of my own age-denial. I'm not three thousand years old yet, but I'm definitely too old to still be doing this.
> 
> So, thank you for reading. Your comments are appreciated, as always.
> 
> Also, my condolences and hugs to any other June 26th-babies out there.  
> (Remember, age is only a number!)


End file.
